Saturday, April 5, 2014

Responsibility and desires

Consider four cases. In each case, you know that Jones, an innocent person, is drowning and will survive if and only if you throw her a life preserver in the next two minutes. But in each of the four cases there are further facts that you know:

The life preserver is locked down with a mind-reading device that will open if and only if you have a desire to eat a tarantula. You lack that desire and your character is such that you are unable to form that desire in two minutes.

The life preserver is locked down with a mind-reading device that will open if and only if you have a desire to eat a tarantula. You lack that desire, as well as lacking a desire to rescue Jones, and your character is such that you are unable to form either desire in two minutes.

Same as 2, but the the mind-reading device will open if and only if you have a desire to rescue Jones. You lack that desire and your character is such that you are unable to form that desire in two minutes.

The life preserver is not tied down, but your character is such that you can only rescue Jones if you desire to rescue Jones. You lack that desire and your character is such that you are unable to form that desire in two minutes.

In case (1) you are not being directly responsible for failing to rescue Jones. You might, of course, be derivatively responsible, if, say, you had foreseen that the case would arise sufficiently early in the game you had foreseen that the case would come up and failed to make reasonable efforts to self-induce a desire to eat a tarantula. Such efforts could have involved reflection on the bragging rights one would gain from eating a tarantula, but it would take more than two minutes to succeed—it's too late now, anyway. With such a back story, you would be derivatively responsible for faiing to rescue Jones on the basis of your responsibility for being unable to have a desire to eat a tarantula. The case is no different from the life preserver being locked down with an ordinary lock that you have no key for and are unable to smash or pick. You have no direct responsibility, though you might have derivative responsibility if you were responsible for locking down the life preserver.

Now, in case (2), we will want to blame you. You wouldn't have rescued Jones even if you could. But while that does imply a defect of character, it is not a case of direct responsibility for failing to rescue Jones. Again, you may have derivative responsibility if you are responsible for having failed to get started earlier at self-inducing a desire to eat a tarantula. But if you're not responsible for your inability to have a desire to eat a tarantula over the next two minutes, you're not responsible for failing to rescue Jones. Though you might be responsible for failing to want to rescue Jones.

Case (3) isn't significantly different from case (2). If the mind-reading device requires you to have a desire that you are unable to form over the next two minutes, you're not directly responsible for failing to rescue, though again you may be derivatively responsible if you are responsible for your inability to have that desire.

But now consider case (4). Again, this is a case where you are unable to rescue Jones unless you form a certain desire to rescue her in two minutes, and you are unable to form that desire. The same thing as above should be true: you are at most derivatively responsible for failing to rescue Jones. And derivative responsibility requires that you be antecedently responsible for something else, in this case your inability to have over the next two minutes a desire to rescue Jones.

We need one more reflection. If you are not directly responsible in case (4) when you know the facts about your character that are given in (4), you are also not directly responsible in case (4) when he is ignorant of these facts. (You might be responsible for failing to try to induce a desire, but not for failing to induce it or for failing to rescue.[note 1])

There is a lesson here. If you are unable to do something because you're unable to have a mental state, then you're at most going to be derivatively responsible for failing to do it. Moreover this principle should not be limited to failure but needs to be applied to positive action as well: if refraining from an action would take a mental state that you are unable to gain in the time required, you're at most going to be derivatively responsible. But derivative responsibility must ultimately come from direct, non-derivative responsibility. However, if compatibilism is true, then all the things we are responsible for are determined by our motivational states. In no case like that, though, can we have non-derivative responsibility. That was the lesson of the above cases. So if compatibilism is true, there is no non-derivative responsibility, and hence there is no responsibility.

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I am a philosopher at Baylor University. This blog, however, does not purport to express in any way the opinions of Baylor University. Amateur science and technology work should not be taken to be approved by Baylor University. Use all information at your own risk.